Through all of the busy and crowded months in Wakeman Jim had almost forgotten the one person who was more important to him in his young life than any other. But hardly had he set foot in the front yard of the old farm than he saw her. Immediately his pulse quickened. It was lovely Jeanne, his “Whistling Jeanne.”
The very first thing which he noticed was how tall she had grown during his absence, and her stunning beauty spun his senses about wildly. He could hardly believe what his eyes revealed.
“Something queer happened to my heart when she caught me up in her arms and kissed me. My Jeanne was changed.”
In a few minutes Jeanne had once again won her old place back in his heart. That feeling of security and comfort was his, as it had been before, now that he had his Jeanne back to console him during those times when things went wrong.
Hardly had the family a chance to really settle down again than Jim was once more beginning to write.
In the town of Wakeman he had become acquainted with a motherly old lady who had thought a great deal of him. So much so, in fact, that when he asked her for some of her old magazines, she not only complied with that request, but also went to the nearest drugstore and purchased a “dozen brand new ones” for him.
There on the little farm when his daily chores were over, Jim would sit out under the trees with Jeanne and Skinny, and pore over the contents and the wonderful stories by famous authors. The smouldering flame that was embedded within his heart for adventure stories and the yearning to write them was overpowering.
It is seldom that a boy of young Jim Curwood’s age should take so great an interest in such a mature profession. But he seemed to be able to look into the future and almost say what was going to take place, so confident was he. It seems almost uncanny that a young lad could have such a vivid imagination and at the same time learn to put it into words and story form. But a great deal of Jim’s success can rightfully be credited to Jeanne Fisher. Obviously this is true, for throughout his entire literary career, the character and the beauty of “Whistling Jeanne” was always there.
She used to tell him that he must write harder than ever and then some day he could put her into his stories.
If only she could know how many times, hundreds of times in fact, she really was written into his stories. Who knows? Perhaps she does.